As expected, the climb up Mont Megantic rearranged the standings in the Tour de Beauce on the third stage, with Marc de Maar (United Healthcare p/b Maxxis) winning the stage and taking over the yellow jersey of race leader. Canadian Derrick St-John (Club Garneau Chassures) by a mere eight seconds, and now sits second overall, seven seconds behind de Maar, followed by former Beauce winner Valeriy Kobzarenko Team Type 1), a further seven seconds in arrears.

SpiderTech's David Boily took over the Best Young Rider jersey, after a strong tenth place on the stage, while Andrew Pinfold (United Healthcare) continues to hold the Points jersey and former race leader Rafael Serrano Fernandez (Heraklio-Murcia) retains only the Climber's jersey, down from all four that he held after the first stage.

Heraklio-Murcia chases

Normally, the Mont Megantic stage follows a set pattern: a break of six to eight riders breaks away early in the race, taking their lead up to five or six minutes before the peloton starts to reel them in on the approach to the final Megantic climb. Then, it becomes a lottery - will the break stay away, or will the top riders catch them before the top of the five kilometre climb to the finish? It can - and has - gone either way in the past.

This year, race organizers changed the opening kilometres from the usual route out of St-Georges with big rolling climbs, to one that followed the Chaudiere river. The mainly flat road, with the assistance of a tailwind, kept the speed so high that no break could form.

The race stayed together until shortly before the base of the first KoM climb, after the village of Lac Drolet. Kobzarenko and Sergiy Grechyn (Amore e Vita) started the break, and were joined by Jeff Louder (BMC Racing), Darren Rolfe (Fly V Australia) and Bjorne Papstein (SC Wledenbruck 2000). As they hit the base of the climb, St-John managed to bridge up, to make it six in the lead group.

The Break

The move was perfect timing, with Heraklio-Murcia starting to crack, and no other teams prepared to put the effort in to chase, with Megantic still to come. Over the top of the climb the break gained two minutes, but it was followed by a bizarre temper tantrum by Kobzarenko, who began screaming at Papstein and threw a water bottle at him. Eventually the officials went up to calm things down, and the break settled into a rhythm.

The reason for the outburst? Kobzarenko was unhappy with the riding of Papstein, who he said was surging every time the German went to the front, destroying the functioning of the group. Kobzarenko was later fined for 'unseemly behaviour'...

Once they got organized, the group went to over three minutes clear by the 90 kilometre mark, before their rhythm was destroyed once again by the race being neutralized for a section of road under construction.

Mindful of the terrible crash and criticism they had received in stage one, race organizers opted to have the riders just roll through the section of gravel and then stopped everyone at the end of it. The break was sent off with their three-plus minute lead, and then the peloton. The move generated criticism from the riders and teams, with Nathan O'Neill commenting "this is a bike race, so let us race!"

The impetus had gone out of the break after the interruption and, likely the peloton realized while standing around how far down they were, and began to chase harder. The result was that the gap began to drop steadily, and the group reached the base of the final five kilometre climb in the national park with a lead down to 90 seconds.

The climb averages 10% for the five kilometres, with sections up to 18%, and is split into two parts connected by a short flat and downhill section. In the opening portion Kobzarenko and Papstein were setting much of the pace, and there were no real attacks.

It was in the second part, with approximately two and a half kilometres to go that St-John attacked, immediately opening a five second gap on Kobzarenko, Papstein, Louder and Rolfe, with Grechyn dropping well back. With 1100 metres to go, St-John looked to have it won, but de Maar was flying up the climb, picking off the remnants of the chase and finally catching the Canadian 200 metres from the finish.

Derrick St-John came so close to a win

de Maar claimed to be surprised by his strong climb, commenting "I hope I never have to do it again! This is a really hard climb. It was pretty steep, and we don't have climbs in Holland... With three K to go there were only ten guys left [in the peloton] and I attacked. I was pretty confident that I could do well, and I caught the last guy with 200 metres to go."

St-John shrugged off the loss, saying "I could feel that something was going to go in a break. I missed the initial break, but I bridged across. On the final climb, sometimes if you go too slow it's harder, so I just went. It was on the second steep section, I think. de Maar went by me super fast, so good on him. IT would have been awesome to win, but, hey, it's a bike race. It's probably the best result ever for me."

Race Notes:

- David Boily finished tenth on the stage and now sits ninth overall, the top Young Rider. He holds a 51 second lead in the competition over Jacques Janse van Rensburg (DCM). "I'm glad about my day and the outcome of this race. Team SpiderTech rode well today and we are pleased to have four guys in top 15 GC with less than a minute, which I'm part of. It was one of our goals for this week to have me in the best young rider's jersey. My goal is to keep this jersey until the end. It is a nice reward after working hard this Spring."

- Tomorrow is the time trial, which could rearrange the standings yet again. de Maar is seven seconds in front of St-John and 14 ahead of Kobzarenko, but the big worries are Ben Day (Fly V Australia) at 39 seconds and Ryan Roth (SpiderTech p/b Planet Energy) at 1:06. Both beat de Maar at the Chrono Gatineau last weekend. The time trial starts at 9:30 am EDT and concludes at approximately noon.

- Andrew Pinfold holds onto the Points jersey by virtue of picking up points in an intermediate sprint early in the stage. He has 28 points, with Charles Dionne (Fly V Australia) and Grechyn tied at 26. St-John is fourth with 25 points.

- In the Climber competition, Serrano Fernandez and Kobzarenko are tied atop the standings with 28 points, but Serrano was awarded the jersey for another day. St-John is third with 21 points.